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Is gender neutral language important?

Wash. state considers gender-neutral language bill

By RACHEL LA CORTE | Associated Press â 5 hrs ago

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) â In Washington state, dairymen, freshmen and even penmanship could soon be things of the past.

Over the past six years, state officials
have engaged in the onerous task of changing the language used in the
state's copious laws, including thousands of words and phrases, many
written more than a century ago when the idea of women working on police
forces or on fishing boats wasn't a consideration.

That process is slated to draw to
a close this year. So while the state has already welcomed
"firefighters," ''clergy" and "police officers" into its lexicon,
"ombuds" (in place of ombudsman) and "security guards" (previously
"watchmen,") appear to be next, along with "dairy farmers," ''first-year
students" and "handwriting."

"Some people would say 'oh, it's
not a big thing, do you really have to go through the process of
changing the language,'" said Seattle Councilmember Sally Clark who was one of the catalysts for the change. "But language matters. It's how we signal a level of respect for each other."

About half of all U.S. states have moved toward such gender-neutral language at varying levels, from drafting bills to changing state constitutions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Florida and Minnesota have already completely revised their laws as Washington state is doing.

The final installment of Washington state's bill already has sailed
through the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee with unanimous approval.
The nearly 500-page bill has one more committee stop scheduled before
full Senate debate.

Crispin Thurlow, a sociolinguist
and associate professor of language and communication at the University
of Washington-Bothell, said the project was admirable.

He said that as language evolves, such efforts are more than symbolic.

"Changing words can change what we think about the world around us,"
he said. "These tiny moments accrue and become big movements."

Clark and former councilmember
Jan Drago â the Seattle City Council has long eschewed the terms
councilwoman or councilman â brought the issue to Sen. Jeannie
Kohl-Welles in 2006 after they came across references to firemen and
policemen in the mayor's proposed budget, as well as in state law
dealing with local-government pensions.

Clark and Drago's findings
sparked the initial gender-neutral language law that was passed in 2007,
immediately changing those terms and directing the state code reviser's
office to do a full revision of the rest of the code. A 1983 Washington
state law had already required all new statutes to be written in gender-neutral terms, so state officials were tasked with going through the rest of state statutes dating back to 1854 to revise the rest.

As in past bills on the issue that have tackled sections of the state
code, some revisions were as simple as adding "or her" after "his."
Others required a little more scrutiny. Phrases like "man's past"
changes to "humankind's past" and a "prudent man or woman" is simply a
"prudent person."

Kyle Thiessen, the state's code reviser who has been working on the
project along with two attorneys since 2008, said that the work was not
without obstacles.

Words like "manhole" and "manlock" aren't so easily replaced, he
said. Substitutes have been suggested â "utility hole" and "air lock
serving as a decompression chamber for workers." But Thiessen said those
references will be left alone to avoid confusion.

Republican state Rep. Shelly Short, of Addy, has voted against
earlier gender-neutral language bills and said she plans to do the same
this year.

"I don't see the need to do gender neutrality," she said, adding that
her constituents want her to focus on jobs and the economy. "We're
women and we're men."

Kohl-Welles, who has sponsored
each of the gender-neutral language bills, said that while this project
hasn't been her top legislation every year, "overall, it has important
significance."

Thank you! I was feeling surprised that I was the only one who felt that way in a forum full of women!

Quoting annelauer:

You are completely missing the point. There are differences between men and women. And there are words to make that distinction. The problem is when a title presupposes only those belonging to a particular gender group are capable of fulfilling a role or inaccurately attributes certain characteristics only to one gender. This has a profound effect on how we view ourselves, others and our places within the community.

Quoting meriana:

The whole thing is rediculous. I wonder just how far they're willing to take this gender neutral idea...are we, at some point, no longer going to refer to children as girls and boys because that denotes a gender. People really need to get beyond seeing everything as stereotyping, excluding, offensive, etc. There are differences between girls and boys, men and women no matter how many try to deny it. Those differences used to be appreciated, these days it's all about making everyone the same.

This obsession with EVERY stinking thing having to be so PC all the time has gone totally over the top. Witness a similar, but even more obnoxious case in Sweden, recently. After skimming, it appears the thing here in WA state is not quite as offensive as I originally thought. The situation in Sweden was much worse.

Or, for crying out loud, how about using the words 'people' and 'person'?!?

Quoting fnpdocgrrl:

This obsession with EVERY stinking thing having to be so PC all the time has gone totally over the top. Witness a similar, but even more obnoxious case in Sweden, recently. After skimming, it appears the thing here in WA state is not quite as offensive as I originally thought. The situation in Sweden was much worse.

My favourite thing to do in this context is change all the gender terms (in bylaws and constitutions and contracts, etc.) to female.

It's amazingly disorienting to most people reading them...

I think we should campaign for "woman" and "She" to be the default indicating both sexes, for the next 100 years, as fair balance for the several 100 years where the male gender has served that purpose.

We might, graciously, decide to accept gender neutral language as a compromise.

Are we going to have to make something up to replace the word "woMAN" too?

In Old English, wÄ«fmann meant "female human", whereas wÄr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone", however subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 1200s had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wÄr.

Language matters. It's the science, bitches. It's why this move is being made, to change over to more gender-neutral. It's why Sesame Street began to have female muppets. It's why it WOULD sound strange to default pronouns to female...

see, here's the thing: while we can all see, react/respond to/discuss, etc. things that are hit-you-over-the head obvious affectors of human psyche, gender norms/prejudices/expectations...it's the stuff we don't even catch that has an outsized impact on us all, precisely because these things are subtle, unnoticed and therefore incorporated into us all without notice or question.

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